Oil on water.

Cinematic Moment:  Treat your grandmas well

While getting an oil change the other day, we ran into quite the character. I heard her before I actually saw her, gabbing loudly with the man sitting in an adjacent chair, about lottery tickets and gambling. He explained that even if you win at a slot machine, the IRS will be knocking down the door for their share, taking it from your social security if need be. "You can't win for losing!" she cooed, shaking her head. Now I saw her fully in all her maternal glory. She was wearing an aqua colored pullover over a button-down, black corduroy skirt that skimmed her ankles.  Pepto-bismol pink legwarmers peeked out between the hem of the skirt and a pair of New Balance deserving of the name. Her glasses were gold rimmed and the size of a teacup rim. Her tiny hands fidgeted through a red fanny pack, a relic of some local fireman fundraiser. 

The man at the desk told her the car had passed inspection; the charge would be $21. As the only other woman in the room, she immediately latched onto my presence as, most importantly, the only other woman in the room. "Oh for heaven's sake, do they see us coming! You're a woman so you know what I mean."  She looked at me from beneath her wool cap, the color of 3 day old ash.

"I sure do!" I replied, shaking my head in her direction, while adding a quiet "But not here so much" to appease our resident oil change man. I've always been a people pleaser. His eyes said traitor.  I figured he'd forgive me for siding with the 85 year old woman.

She spelled her name out loud to avoid having to hobble to the desk with her cane to fill out the paperwork. E-u-d-i-s.  I would have pegged her for a Bertie had I not heard it with my own two ears.  She continued rifling through the fanny pack.  "People been taking things out of my car you know, so I took my papers out of there.  Now I can't find my license."  

I spotted the barcode of a New York State driver's license poking it's head from the flames of the first pocket.  "Um, I think that's it there."

She went on to explain that she didn't mean her license, but her registration.  They'd give her a ticket if she was caught without the thing.  This of course was another conspiracy against women.  She was sure of it.  I agreed again.  With all the misogyny floating around, what was the world coming to?

Even with her car ready to go, Eudis stuck around for a bit, pouring herself a cup of coffee.  She poured a hefty amount of what she thought was creamer into the cheap styrofoam cup, tsking herself at the realization it was in fact, sugar.  "By heaven do I love sugar.  But I can't have it, you know.  I'm a diabetic."  I hadn't known this, but something told me we were not getting out of there without learning a great deal about Eudis that we hadn't know when we woke up that morning.

Swapping out her sugar laden coffee for something a little more diabetic friendly, she came back over to tell us a complete and thorough history of her disease.  The medications her doctor had accidentally prescribed that gave her bizarre elderly acne, her opinions on Medicaid, the lack of vegetables in the hospital cafeteria and how she figured if she was going to die from a diabetic seizure, she "might as well do it eating ice cream."  I could respect that.  And I did.

When Eudis was finally left, registration in hand and wishing us a blessed New Year, the people in the waiting room at Jiffy Lube shot their sympathetic looks at us for having had to deal with her.  That crazy old lady.  What they didn't understand is how sorry we felt for them for not being able to handle the musings of a sweet elderly woman with no one else to talk to.  I would have sat there all day and chatted with her, like a surrogate granddaughter.  She wasn't crazy, just lonely.  My fiance hit the nail on the head when he said on our way out:  "I think she's just misunderstood."  You can't win for losing.

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